from Hacker News

Why (not) pay for music?

by hukl on 7/14/13, 12:54 PM with 51 comments

• by k-mcgrady on 7/14/13, 2:39 PM

  >> "Don’t even care to get on streaming platforms in the beginning. They are all more or less under the control of the labels and you would be the luckiest person in the world if you can buy a box of beer from the revenues after a year or two."

  When you can get your music on iTunes, Amazon etc. and all the streaming platforms for $50 (CDBaby) there is no reason not to. I really don't understand the authors reasoning here. It seems to go against everything they said about making your music available legally because people will steal it otherwise. Why withhold from any platform?

  Also the advice on recording yourself isn't great. Sure you can pick up a book or look on YouTube but recording and producing music well is difficult. Mixing is difficult, especially without high quality equipment. The only way to get good is through lots of experience I've found, there isn't a shortcut.

  >> "Yes you will need some money for equipment"

  You will need a lot of money for equipment if you want to sound good. I use an Apogee ONE (pretty basic I/O device/preamp) and that alone is £300. A Shure SM58 mic (for vocals) is £100. An AKG 451 for recording acoustic instruments is £300. All this not to mention the recording software, a decent computer, and your guitars, drums, etc.

  If you record in a studio all this is provided (and they provide much higher quality stuff than you could ever afford). They also usually have an assortment of high quality musical equipment (amps, guitars etc.) which you are free to use.

• by Sprint on 7/14/13, 3:28 PM

  I am pretty much saturated with free music from the many netlabels and happy "amateur" musicians who release music because they make music for music's sake, not money. If somebody wants recommendations, name a genre and I will see if I can drop some links. There is a lot of negative prejudice against free music which is a real shame.

• by SamWhited on 7/14/13, 2:22 PM

  > Compared to the analog world, where it would take ages to copy hundreds of Tapes or CDs

  I think you mean the `physical' world. CDs aren't a part of the analog world; they're digital. Analog has to do with the signal type, not the medium.</pedantry>

• by jdietrich on 7/14/13, 3:48 PM

  Don't do any of that nonsense, it's a complete waste of time. Go out and play gigs. Even if you do become a megastar, most of your revenue will come from live performance. We're in an age where most people won't pay $6.99 for an album, but they'll happily pay $69 to see a band from row Q of an arena. Why spend any time or effort on the least profitable part of the enterprise, when you can get straight to the meat?

  Recording an album in your bedroom is almost always a cop-out. It's a way of being able to tell yourself that you tried to have a career in music, without taking any real emotional risk or doing any real work. It's a way of "getting your music out there" that doesn't require the courage to stand up in front of a bar full of strangers and play it. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Musicians with internet-based careers are still absolutely the exception rather than the rule, they're still a rare aberration.

  If you want to be in a rock and roll band, then be in a rock and roll band. Don't buy yourself a bunch of recording equipment, buy a rusted-up old Econoline. Don't overdub your guitar tracks onto a drum machine, put up a flyer in your local music shop and find a drummer. Take whatever crappy gigs you can get and hustle like a mofo. At the very least, you'll end up with far better anecdotes.

• by area51org on 7/14/13, 2:22 PM

  This is probably the future. Artists will learn to record on their own (they already are), and the good ones will end up with patrons, who will (as patrons do) pay for them to continue working.

• by Vaskerville on 7/14/13, 2:40 PM

  The underlying premise that labels are there solely to "promise" artists riches via hit albums is invalid. Perhaps for the mega labels that's the case, but there are a heck of alot of small labels who have honorable intentions and can and do provide quality assistance (of many different kinds) for artists.

• by intopieces on 7/14/13, 3:35 PM

  The one problem with this article: citing The Beatles as a group that won big in the business. Not true at all. The Beatles were terribly mismanaged, their manager sold the rights to songs for pennies or even gave them away. Money troubles inspired the song "You Never Give Me Your Money."

• by kristofferR on 7/14/13, 3:48 PM

  >> "Some won’t even download it illegally, instead they will just listen to music through streaming services like Spotify which are free to a certain extend and which yield so little profit to the labels or the artists that it is almost like downloading it for free."

  This is totally inaccurate. The music industry grew for the first time since 1999 due to digital streaming services:

  http://ifpi.no/9-forsiden/43-ifpi-publishes-digital-music-re...

• by voltagex_ on 7/14/13, 2:42 PM

  I'll pay for music that I can get in FLAC or ALAC for a reasonable cost (say, $1 extra than the cost of the WAV). I'm trying hard not to buy physical CDs, but it's difficult.

• by _pmf_ on 7/14/13, 4:16 PM

  > For over a decade now the music industry is struggling.

  And that's where I stopped reading (which is unfortunate, because this is also where I started reading).

• by dshibarshin on 7/14/13, 3:37 PM

  Why not? Because I'm able to find all of the music I'm looking for on Soundcloud. Plus it's a great platform to discover new talent.

• by nawitus on 7/14/13, 2:42 PM

  I'll consider paying when the copyright lobby stops taking away my liberties (which is probably never).